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Tian-Hyad
History The Ordering of Azeroth After the destruction of Y'Shaaraj at the hands of Aman'thul, it became clear that the old ones would not so easily prevail on Azeroth. The forces of the Black Empire fled the shattered husk of their dark god, collectively chittering their desperate pleas to the void to summon a horrific entity far more powerful than all who had come before it: Kw'nthe. However, much like the Void Lords, this being was far too great to manifest in Azeroth with ease, even with the help of C'thun, N'zoth and Yogg-Saron. Thus, these priests were slain by the titan-forged before the spell could be completed. Instead, a god-shaped hole was left in reality. Unlike the wound left by Y’shaarj, this rift was not ostensibly damaging to Azeroth herself, and thus the keepers were simply ordered to keep watch of the area until further notice. Following the war, the Pantheon determined that Azeroth would be in great peril if an additional Old God was allowed to infect the planet in their absence, and thus formulated a plan. Under the command of Keeper Nuwen, the newborn mogu were commanded to construct and oversee a great fortress-barrier around the area, much like those at Ulduar and Ahn'Qiraj. For quarantine, the surrounding earth would be separated from Kalimdor, and fortress island was named Hyad in the language of the titans. Meanwhile, Odyn would send legions of iron Vrykul to serve as guards and foot soldiers. Birth of Empires These relentless constructs continued their service for millennia on their remote facility. However, their mainland brethren began to be infected with the curse of flesh, succumbing to the machinations of the imprisoned old ones. During the Age of a Hundred Kings, defeated mogu warlords traveled south in an effort to turn the armies to their petty causes. Despite being turned away, these travelers would sow the seeds of chaos within the ranks of Hyad in the form of the Curse of Flesh. Over time, the native vrykul and mogu world degenerate into mortal, fleshy creatures susceptible to emotion and frailty. A city, Heido,was built around the titanic prison, with its guards now forced to indulge in food and shelter. All records regarding Nuwen ceased at this time, and the combination of this and the physical predicament of the guardians caused them to lose their focus. Both vrykul and mogu were both naturally brutal populations when exposed to the curse, and many conflicts would arise among the two races, as well as their kin. However, due to their historically administrative roles, the mogu were able to convince the majority of the vrykul to rejoin their service. The cleverest managed to win the loyalty of larger forces, and thus rose to become the first emperors of the newly named Tian-Hyad. In exchange for loyalty in some cases, loyal vrykul were taught the art of sorcery. As a result, hyadese magic is extremely similar to that of the mogu. Those vrykul who found themselves among the losing side of these conflicts or desired to serve none at all soon found themselves at the mercy of the merciless. Many would sail away, settling in maritime communities along the southern coast of Kalimdor. These exiles retained knowledge of their origin and worshiped the Keepers they had once served, but over time their skin grew darker than their brethren. They would name themselves Azotha, after their planet’s world soul. , prime overseer of the rift.]] Those that remained were not content to serve for long, however. The mogu grew jaded and decadent, taking for granted the backbone of their empire. Their subjects grew tired of their mistreatment, and erupted into bloody revolt. What followed was a mutually devastating series conflicts known as the Vrykul-Mogu Wars, which ended in the eventual dissolution of all mogu control and the establishment of the vrykul-led Juren Dynasty. The Juren would enslave most of their former masters, possibly using flesh-shaping or selective breeding to twist them into diminutive and subservient yet magically potent beings known as mogwai.Over the course of this dynasty, its subjects would lose the last vestiges of their once mighty forms and become human. However, among the modern Hyadese, Juren is widely synonymous with the term “vrykul,”. Pandaren Revolution Despite losing much of their innate savagery, the Juren would remember their bitter war with the mogu. Thus, when Pandaren emissaries arrived seeking support in their rebellion, it took little to convince these humans. Pieces of this alliance exist in Pandaren legend to this day. Following the defeat of Lao-Fe, the two cultures would freely exchange with one another, and the humans would be granted training in Pandaren martial arts, with a number of Pandaren settling in Tian-Hyad. It was during this time that the Hyadese entered their first golden age. However, the forgotten evil of Kaiwan yet lay under their feet. Fall of the Juren The Juren Dynasty's age of prosperity continued well past the Shattering, which they were largely unaffected by. For the most part, the land was unified, and prospered through trade. Through this prosperity, the land grew increasingly urbanized, and the imperial capital of Heido grew to the point that construction spread over the Old God's prison. As generations died and the duties of their ancestors passed into legend, few took heed the tales of this dark presence. For the first time since the dawn of order on Azeroth, the old one peered through the void, taking notice of them. Reports from the city of lunacy, disease and familial murder began to increase, and as time went on, this trend would slowly sweep over the nation. The Juren Dynasty began a steady decline, and provincial regions began to distance themselves from the Heido. Nonetheless, the citizens kept faith in the throne. Rise of The Flayed King : See main article: Legend of The Flayed King ]]Information of the Final Emperor of the Juren is intentionally scant, as it would appear that record keepers believed progeny would be better off forgetting him. What is known is that this emperor heeded the call of Old One, and either out of pure indulgence or submission to this dark force, he would commit unspeakable horrors onto his subjects. Eventually, they would revolt, and further atrocities would unfold. What later historians have been able to gather regarding this elusive figure has been almost entirely relegated to ancient tales passed down regarding his grizzly final moments at the hands of his infuriated subjects. In contrast to most information regarding his life, these descriptions yield a disturbing amount of detail. The peasants dragged the once emperor through is palace in chains, stripping his clothes and breaking his bones in the process. but the wiser men of the city, the scholars and artists, fled the kingdom, for they knew what the things in the palace dungeon meant. The emperor was dragged through the mud on broken knees, hissing unholy words although his jaw was broken as he was brought to the market square. He was tied to a wooden post, and slowly stripped of his flesh for three days, during which time multiple limbs were severed in pieces and his flesh was cut over three thousand times. The flayed meat was sold to the townsfolk, who ate it or kept it for alchemy. Eventually, they took his head by slowly cutting his neck with that same knife. Still, through soaked teeth he gurgled inhuman words that came from dark places, laughing all the while until his head was held aloft. The fevered cheering, which had continued day and night, at last died down. His bloodshot eyes, now lifeless and wide, still seemed to be staring at them. The Emperor was in pieces, yet it seemed as though his laughter still echoed. Although they had planned to let it rot, but the lifeless look of the king was so resentful it was decided that he would be buried beneath the earth, unmourned and forgotten. They buried him on the city outskirts in a shallow grave, wanting to leave as soon as possible. Over the next three days, the citizens were visited by the wrath of their fallen emperor in the form of various degrees of plagues of disease and madness. The Emperor would resemble his form and rise from his grave on the third day, reborn as the terrible Flayed King. All who survived at this point were forced to apart their own flesh, as the King walked through the bloody streets to his throne in the palace dungeon. The Emperor sat on the throne, the spikes impaling both his body and soul. This was his rightful throne, but he was there to suffer forever. The city sunk beneath the earth and collapsed in on itself along with everything in it. Its inhabitants were now in another place, transformed and remade into something twisted and inhuman. The people began to cheer, parading as they did when they were alive on the day they took the palace, laughing and laughing as the King silently screamed. And so, the city is ruled forever by the Flayed King, while the masked dead celebrate and parade until they rot. The Blood Curse The twisted remains of Heido were all remained of The Emperor Unmourned in this plane of reality, a dark reminder of their ancestral responsibility. Forevermore, the citizens of Tian-Hyad would be wary of that place, and the power of the old one below. With the power vacuum everpresent This threat alone was not sufficient to unite the long destabilized kingdom as long as the power vacuum left by the Juren existed and so the Hyadese battled for supremacy until a new dynasty, the Ciu, arose. This Dynasty would establish its capital to a the port city of Buwei, place far from Heido, and peace would be upon the land once more. The scholars and artists who fled the city did not find peace, however. They were haunted both in waking moments and in dreams with whispers from the twisted city. They would go on to write dramas and poems, composing songs and paintings or what they had seen. Some told of the Flayed King, vile and scornful, swearing to his scholars that he would return to take the throne of the living once more. The words of the Flayed King would come true. Over time, the Ciu Dynasty grew mentally unstable, and their appearances grew warped like him. At the end of the Ciu Dynasty, the chains of The Flayed King shattered, and he manifested in the world once more, taking form within their last emperor from birth. This emperor was monstrous both in body and spirit, and he remembered the things his people did to him. He would use his dark gifts to turn the kingdom into a living hell until an intrepid hero slayed him, taking the kingdom from his grasp and sending the Flayed King screaming into the abyss. However, this would only perpetuate a cycle that would continue to plague the nation into modernity. The King would return in the shell of that hero's descendant, the last emperor of his own dynasty. For these reasons, emperors are looked at with bittersweet eyes, and are praised for the sacrifice of their bloodlines. Birth of the Tong Hui The people of Tian-Hyad grew tired of this cycle and over their many millennia of civilization they tried many ways to avoid it, including a multitude of different government forms. Inevitably, possibly due to the dark influence of Kw'nthe, chaos and war would break out, and a new Emperor would rise. The timing of each cycle is unpredictable, although there are a number of precursors that ministers are taught to keep aware of, such as mental instability, physical mutations or self mutilation. Similarly, previously vanquished incarnations of the Flayed King, known as the Black Echoes besiege the land. The Hyadese would be forced to adapt to this chaotic inevitable chaos, and created and elite society of sanctioned assassins was formed to hunt the manifestations down, known as the Tong Hui.These assasins operate out of Temples dedicated to different forms of death-dealing, and have long since been used for a variety of threats faced by Hyad. The major limitation of such preparations, however, is that the empire may only base plans on information regarding previous manifestations, and no two are truly the same. Centaur Incursion At some point, a large force of High Centaur and low centaur invaded from a waygate in Deepholm, massacring many completely unprepared Hyadese. Although the Empire was able to react before being destroyed, the land is now infested with these aggressive warriors. The Stone Emperor At the end of one dynasty, an emperor, recognizing his predicament, called to one of the remaining mogu clans. He demanded that a sorcerer bind his soul to stone to avoid this fate, but he became a mindless puppet to what would become the first mogu dynasty of Tian-Hydad in eons. The mogu dynasty would, however, crumble just as the others, and their final emperor would manifest as The Flayed King. The stone emperor is said to remain, wandering the land for all of time. Sidao's Expedition Much like the Timeless Isle, there appears to be some form of temporal distortion that exists around Tian-Hyad, causing the nation to be extremely hard to both find and leave, despite supposedly being due south of Pandaria. This is likely due to the reality-bending qualities of The Rift of Kaiwan, as this navigation grew increasingly difficult after The Flayed King attained influence. Thus, within Hyad, most travel and outside influence has been minimal. Most travellers to arrive in Hyad were in from Pandaria due purely to proximity and Azotha, due to their exceptional navigational skills. Roughly during the time of the Second War, a hopeful new emperor took control. While establishing his rule, he ordered a fleet be constructed to travel off the island, establishing trade routes and getting answers regarding the nature of the Old Gods. Admiral Sidao, a high ranking officer and friend of the young emperor, was put in charge of this fleet, and he would sail the world, learning of the numerous kingdoms that were established since The Shattering. Sidao would establish close ties with the other human kingdoms after the fleet was besieged by the Dragonmaw Clan, and since then, younger Hyadese within his force have lent their arms to the Grand Alliance. It has been nearly 30 years since Sidao departed from Hyad, and he has yet to find his Empire. During the conflict in Pandaria, the aging expedition would petition both the Pandaren and the alliance for territory in Pandaria, citing their spurious ties to the Pandaren from over 12,000 years in the past. With the help of the Lorewalkers and offers of allegiance to Varian in his conflict with Garrosh, they would be granted refugee status. However, according to Pandaren legend, Shen-zin Su knows the way to Tian-Hyad. The Hyadese have separately petitioned the enormous turtle to little avail. Geography Climate Culture Economy Tian-Hyad is rumored to have the greatest alchemists in all of Azeroth, exceeding even that of the elves and goblins. This notoriety stems from mogu rule, when the ancestors of the hyadese were trained in the use of transmutation and elixirs. However, the humans would take this art to far greater lengths over their 12,000 years of hegemony. It is said that a grand alchemist from the Eastern Kingdoms would be outclassed by even an alchemist of middling success in Hyad. Their skills at transmutation are so great that the most learned of alchemists can transmute living matter into precious material. As a result, much of the Hyadese economy revolves around the sages, and thus they are ludicrously wealthy and influential in society. Traditions Cuisine -The mogwai are known to create Pancit. Architecture Military Navy Category:Realms Category:Places Category:Human Kingdoms Category:Tian-Hyad